1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a paper object sorting apparatus which converts address information written on paper objects or like objects (hereinafter referred to as "paper objects") to, for instance, bar codes, prints the bar codes on the respective paper objects, and then reads the bar code to thereby sort-and-stack paper objects in accordance with the address information indicated by the bar codes.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventional paper object sorting apparatuses print bar codes corresponding to address information written on paper objects, recognize the address information by reading the respective bar codes, and sort-and-stack the paper objects in accordance with the recognized address information. These paper object sorting apparatuses have greatly improved the operation efficiency because the conversion from address information to bar codes eliminates the need of performing optical character recognition on address information etc. in every paper object sorting operation. A paper object sorting apparatus of the above prior art is disclosed in the Gazette of Patent Disclosure No. 1982-110379 (disclosed on Jul. 9, 1982).
The paper object sorting apparatus disclosed in the Gazette will be described below with reference to FIG. 1.
Paper objects 108 which have not been sorted-and-stacked before are set in a paper object supply section 101. The paper objects 108 are supplied to a conveying path 109. While the paper objects 108 are transported on the conveying path 109, an optical character recognizing section 102 recognizes postal codes, addresses and other information (hereinafter referred to as "address information") written on the paper objects 108 based on image data obtained by scanning the surfaces of the paper objects 108. A bar code printing section 103 converts the address information recognized by the optical character recognizing section 102 to bar codes, and prints the bar codes onto the respective paper objects 108. Only in the first sorting operation, a gate controller 105 is controlled in accordance with the address information recognized by the optical character recognizing section 102. The conveying direction of the paper objects 108 is branched by gates 106 that are driven by the gate controller 105. Thus, the paper objects 108 are sorted-and-stacked in stores 107 in accordance with the address information.
In second and subsequent sorting operations, bar-codes-printed paper objects 108 set in the paper object supply section 101 are supplied to the conveying path 109. While the paper objects 108 are transported on the conveying path 109, the bar codes printed on the paper objects 108 are read by a bar code reader 104 to recognize the corresponding address information. Then, as in the case of the first sorting operation, the paper objects 108 are sorted-and-stacked in the stores 107 in accordance with the address information recognized by the bar code reader 104. This operation is repeated until the sorting is completed.
As described above, by converting the address information recognized by the optical character recognizing section such as an OCR to bar codes and printing the bar codes onto the paper objects when sorting those for the first time, the address information can be recognized simply by reading the bar codes on the paper objects in the subsequent sorting operations.
However, when the conventional paper object sorting apparatus is used, bar codes remain printed on paper objects. Therefore, the user who receive paper objects bearing dirt etc. caused by a bar code will feel very uncomfortable.